Toronto man guilty of dismembering ex-girlfriend

TORONTO (AP) — A Toronto man was convicted Thursday of second-degree murder for killing and dismembering his ex-girlfriend, then scattering body parts around the city and Niagara Falls.

A jury found Jiang Chunqi guilty in the killing of Liu Guanghua, 41, in August 2012. Both were born in China and naturalized as Canadian citizens.

The conviction comes with an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 10 to 25 years.

Liu, a single mother of three, met Jiang while working at a factory before starting her own spa business. The couple had an on-again-off-again relationship for four years before breaking up.

Prosecutors said Jiang killed Liu after she rejected him for another man.

The defense said it was Jiang's 66-year-old mother who fatally stabbed and dismembered Liu in a fit of rage over allegedly stolen jewelry, while her son simply helped cover up the crime.

Jiang admitted to bringing up parts of Liu's body to be washed in the kitchen sink and packing them in plastic bags, but insisted it was his mother who cut up the body.

Prosecutors suggested Jiang's ailing mother would not have been physically able to overpower a fit woman and walk away "without so much as a scratch."

Authorities said Liu's head and body showed more than 40 "chop-like" wounds caused by a sharp-edged object, possibly a hatchet or cleaver, and that Liu's blood was found in Jiang's basement and in the trunk of his car.

Prosecutor Brian McGuire argued the brutality of the assault proves Liu was never meant to survive.